You Can’t Get There From Here (At Least I Couldn’t), Which Is Why You Should Go There. – by CHRIS GRETA

The Frisian Island of Fohr is about the most perfect place I’ve ever encountered.

Yeah, I’ve only been here around two-thirds of a day, but it checks off all the boxes.

First off, islands have their own juju. I’ve never been on an island that didn’t have some magic. So far for the year of 2025, I’ve been on three islands for a total, so far, of almost three months. New Zealand, Scotland, and now Fohr Island. It seems odd calling the first two islands because they’re pretty damned big, even though you could drive from one side to the other, sea to shining sea, in a day.

And they both have their magic. Castles, villages, great beaches, fascinating and unique flora and fauna, and their own unique takes on the English language.

But this place…

C’mon.

I usually wait to write until I know what the hell I’m talking about, but I started writing this in my head shortly after getting off the ferry from Dagebull Moll (yeah, I don’t get it either. That’s what it’s called, and I’ll figure out why eventually.)

So, I’ve been writing in my head all night and got up at 7:00 to make hot coffee to fill my Viking War Mug and came out into the farm yard to A BLOODY ADIRONDACK CHAIR with my hot coffee and my beat-to-snot laptop to put it down before it escapes my beat-to-snot brain.

Remember Don Juan and “find your spot.”

This is mine.

So, where is that spot?

Well, go back a few months, and summer is coming to Austin.

Hell Season.

Three months of fry-an-egg on your Buick hot. For years, we had a McMansion with a pool, but downsizing meant bye-bye pool, which is the Austin Summer Survival Tool of choice.

So I’m staring down The Roasting, and I just wasn’t in the mood to pack up the old Harley and Hashtag-Go-Nowhere this year.

I was talking to a friend, Sandy Devers, in Scotland and remembered how cool it is there in the summer and they have distilleries and I like whisky and it’s cool and maybe I can go to Scotland and write about distilleries.

I asked if he knew anyone who owned a distillery but he didn’t.

Then I realized this was the best idea anyone ever had so I relentlessly started pestering Scottish distilleries and eventually found two, Fort Glen (with father/son Peter and Matt) and Jackton Distilling (with the Kean family) that had a place to put me for weeks at a time while I uncovered the magic and wrote about them and even brought my nephew, Noah Drook over from Indianapolis to shoot amazing film that turned into some mini-documentaries that are worthy of Oscar nominations.

And now, two-thirds through this Still Life Stories thing, I realize I may have a new purpose in life.

A Calling.

And I’m not the woo-woo calling/destiny type. I don’t believe there is some pre-ordained plan for any of us. Shit just happens, and if you can imagine something and you put your mind to it, you might get to do it.

And if you like it, you figure out a way to do more of it until the magic dissipates and you do something else. And this, going to family-owned distilleries and writing and finding their magic and helping them see their own magic, is my destiny/calling/good fortune that I just lucked into, and damn did I get lucky.

I was initially focused on Scotland, but I somehow sent a note to an obscure, family-owned farm, café, and distillery on the tiny island of Fohr.

Where the hell is Fohr Island?

What the hell is Fohr Island?

For a gringo like me, a CaliTexan (yeah, suck it up. It’s a thing), it was about as foreign a place as I could imagine.

Look at a map of Germany and go all the way up to the border with Denmark, now look on the left side, in the water. Now blow up your map and you’ll see some little spots.

Those are islands. There are lots of them, and Fohr is one. Take a ferry from Dagebull Moll (which I’m sure means something, and I’ll find out) and in around 45 windy minutes, you’re here.

And I’m here now.

For a month. The month of September, 2025. While the world seems intent on destroying itself, I’ll be on this most perfect little island I’ve ever seen, so y’all have at it, and I’ll come back if there’s anything left.

Now the why.

When I was pestering all those distilleries in Scotland, this one popped up in my search, and I sent an email.

I’ll come write, blah, blah, blah.

It went to Hinrichsen’s Farm and Distillery and Jan Hinrichsen said yes, come to stay with us for a month and write about our farm and distillery.

Huh?

Wait a minute.

I looked up Fohr Island on Google maps and used the wobbly little guy icon to run around the roads on this little island.

This is a fricken Disney set.

Seriously.

Open farmlands, beaches with those stylish, striped beach hut/chair thingies (I’ll find out the Frisian name for them which will probably be “beachnhuttenthingies”) and tiny little streets with flowers an thatched roof houses and ice cream parlors and little pedestrian lanes with flowers and more flowers and more flowers.

This can’t be real.

Nothing is this beautiful.

But it’s real. And Jan and Marret Hinrichsen own and run the place. They both grew up on the island and speak Frisian, German and English. It’s 130 acres of organic farm on the west side of the island with grain, cattle, pigs, and chickens, and… Wait for it…

A distillery.

And what a distillery. They’ve taken the barn, upgraded the hell out of it, brought in a German still, turned the loft into a malting floor and storage vault for hundreds of oak casks full of whisky, and about the most wonderful tasting room on any planet.

And they’re making whisky like you’ve never had before.

But we’ll be getting to the whisky part later. I’ve got a month.

It’s still, and will always be, a working farm. Cattle, pigs, chickens, goats, some various and sundry farm cats who view us humans as mildly irritating, and skies full of geese, pigeons, seagulls, and crows.

Generally, if there are seagulls in the sky, either you’re living well or you’re a long way from the ocean and all hell is breaking loose at sea.

I’m writing all this with almost no real knowledge but a first impression. I’ve had some great conversations with Jan, and we drove around the island when I got off the ferry, had dinner on the beach, had big, cold German beer, and of course, a Manhattan and a marvelous Thai dish that I’ll never pronounce.

And I’ll get to the Manhattan thing later too. It’s a thing here.

I’m staying in one of the farm cottages built in the 1960s with a mix of mid-century modern and Dutch farmhouse. Big, expansive windows looking at gardens and trees, and a farmhouse kitchen with a big window that gives me joy.

It’s my first day in, and on first impression, it’s one of the most perfect places I’ve ever experienced. Of course, I haven’t been here during a famous North Sea winter storm, but I’d love to experience that first hand.